Present generation telecommunications networks typically rely on base stations having a cell size (that is, a transmission and reception footprint) of the order of one kilometer in radius. Smaller cells are occasionally used to fill transmission and reception gaps caused by terrain or structural interference.
Large cells in telecommunications networks have worked adequately with previous generation protocols and transmission rates. However, next and future generation networks have substantially increased bandwidth requirements due to increases in the number of users, user population per unit area and the users' telecommunications demands. Unfortunately, signal quality in RF networks falls logarithmically with distance from a transmitter/receiver.
One way to reconcile this need for higher bandwidth to larger numbers of users is to reduce the size of transmission and reception cells from about one kilometer in radius to hundreds of meters. Such small cell telecommunications networks are sometimes referred to as microcellular networks. Unfortunately, smaller cell size and the corresponding use of relatively low power microcellular base stations can lead to increased rates of service outage due to more nulls in the coverage area. The resultant poor service quality is an impediment to customer acceptance of such new networks.
To avoid these problems, it is necessary to ensure easy deployment of the requisite base stations so that large numbers can de deployed quickly as the network is initially installed and additional elements can quickly and flexibly added to network to minimise holes in the service area after installation.
A substantial limiting factor in the rapid and flexible deployment of such communications devices is the need to supply each of them with power. Whilst each base station may nit, in itself, consume a great deal of power, there are power installation and maintenance overheads incurred for each base station. When the base stations are about two kilometers apart, as in current generation telecommunications networks, these overheads are relatively low per unit of area covered. However, the overheads become onerous when power needs to be individually supplied and maintained to each base station every few hundred meters. These overheads are a serious impediment to the rapid and cost effective deployment of the relatively large numbers of base stations required in next generation telecommunications networks.
Exacerbating the problem is the desire to provide an elevated position for each base station, to ensure better transmission and reception, and to place each base station physically out of reach of vandals. There is also a definite advantage to providing flexibility of placement of each base station within a telecommunications network to most economically minimise nulls and poor service areas.
It is an object of the invention to overcome or at least substantially ameliorate one or more of the disadvantages of the prior art.